1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a recording arrangement having receiving means for receiving a television signal and an information signal in which television program information can be transmitted, and having recording means for recording a processed received television signal of a television program, and having selection means for selecting at least one television program whose title information contained in the television program information contains at least one given keyword.
2. Description of the Related Art
Such a recording arrangement of the type defined in the opening paragraph is known from International Patent Application WO 93/05618 (PCT/DE92/00733) and is formed by a video recorder and a remote control device which cooperates with the video recorder. The known arrangement has receiving means for receiving a television signal, which can be reproduced as a television program on a television set which can be connected to the recording arrangement. After processing in signal processing means, a received television signal of a television program can be recorded as a processed received television signal with the aid of recording means of the recording arrangement.
The receiving means are further adapted to receive an information signal transmitted in blanking intervals of a television signal. The information signal conveys digital data representing an electronic program guide, this data including television program information, such as, date, starting time, ending time and title of television programs, which can be received, for example, within the next week, as a television signal from a television station via a television channel. Such an electronic program guide is known, for example, as the xe2x80x9cElectronic Program Guide (European Telecommunication Standard ETS 300 707).
An information signal received by the known video recorder can be applied to the remote control device. The remote control device includes a television program memory in which television program information on future television programs, as derived from the information signal, can be stored. The remote control device further comprises selection means formed by a plurality of keys each corresponding to a given theme, such as, for example, xe2x80x9cwesternsxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9coperasxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cnewsxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cshowsxe2x80x9d. By actuating one of these keys, it is possible to select television programs stored in the television program memory and corresponding to the theme of the actuated key. Moreover, in a keyword entry mode, a letter can be assigned to each key of the remote control device, these keys allowing a user of the video recorder to enter a keyword by hand. Thus, it is possible to actuate a remote control key assigned to, for example, the theme xe2x80x9ccomedyxe2x80x9d and, in addition, to enter the keyword xe2x80x9cElvisxe2x80x9d by hand in the keyword entry mode in order to select those television programs stored in the television program memory, which should be assigned to the theme xe2x80x9ccomedyxe2x80x9d and whose titles contain the keyword xe2x80x9cElvisxe2x80x9d. One or more of the selected television programs can be displayed on the television set connected to the known recording arrangement.
In this way, the television set can display a list of recording suggestions for television programs which may be of interest to the user of the known recording arrangement. Displaying a list of recording suggestions greatly facilitates the choice of a television program which is of interest to the user in order to be recorded by means of the recording arrangement. Furthermore, the list of recording suggestions greatly facilitates programming of the recording arrangement for a time-shifted recording.
However, with the known recording arrangement, it has been found that the themes assigned to the keys of the remote control device by the manufacturer of the recording arrangement hardly ever adequately represent the themes which are of interest to the user. On the one hand, the themes assigned to the keys, such as, for example, xe2x80x9csoccerxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9ctennisxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9ccombat sportxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cswimmingxe2x80x9d are hardly used by a user who is not very keen on sports, while, in the case that another theme such as xe2x80x9cserialsxe2x80x9d has been preset, the television set will show an excessively long list of recording suggestions, which does not simplify the choice of a television program. Therefore, it is also necessary to enter a keyword by hand in order to obtain a list of recording suggestions which is adapted to the user""s interests. The actuation of one of the many keys of the remote control device in order to preset a theme and the additional actuation of one of the many keys in order to preset a keyword for the user cannot be effected in a easy and reliable manner, as a result of which the operating convenience of the known recording arrangement is not very high. Moreover, the number of themes is limited by the number of keys of the remote control device, which is also a disadvantage. Moreover, the broadcasting station should assign an appropriate theme to each television program, and for each television program, a characteristic code corresponding to this theme should be transmitted in the information signal for each television program and should be decoded in the recording arrangement, which requires a substantial expense. Furthermore, it is, each time, necessary to manually enter keywords, which further reduces the operating convenience.
It is an object of the invention to eliminate the aforementioned problems and to provide an improved recording arrangement of the type defined in the opening paragraph. In a recording arrangement of the type defined in the opening paragraph, this object is achieved in that keyword detection means have been provided for detecting at least one item of title fragment information of title information of a television program recorded by the recording means as a processed received television signal, and in that at least one detected keyword can be used as a given keyword by the selection means. Thus, it is achieved that title information representing a title of a television program, recorded by the user by means of the recording arrangement because this television program is of interest to him, is used to determine at least one keyword which characterizes the user""s interest. Suitably, a keyword is then determined automatically without any operations by the user being required or without being tied to a given type of programming of the recording arrangement in order to record a television programxe2x80x94for example, VPT programming or Show View programming. A keyword thus determined automatically has the advantage that it very accurately agrees with the current interest of the user.
In a recording arrangement as defined above, it has proven to be advantageous to provide a keyword memory for storing at least one detected keyword. This has the advantage that all the automatically determined keywords are stored and thus a database of keywords is obtained which is a very accurate representation of the user""s interest profile with regard to the television programs recorded by the user and what future television programs he is likely to be interested in. A list of recording suggestions of television programs whose titles contain at least one of the stored keywords will therefore include a multitude of television programs which are of interest to the user.
In a recording arrangement as defined above, it has proven to be advantageous to adapt the keyword memory to store a recurrence count for each keyword, which recurrence count can be incremented upon each further detection of this keyword by the keyword detection means, and in that for the selection of television programs, the selection means can apply only those keywords whose recurrence counts have values which exceed a selection threshold value which depends on at least one other value of a recurrence count stored in the keyword memory. As a result of this, it is achieved that the selection means only select those television programs whose titles include a keyword which has already been detected comparatively frequently and is therefore of particular interest to the user. Thus, changing interests of the user are taken into account automatically because the count of the occurrence of a keyword, as, for example, xe2x80x9cMagnumxe2x80x9d is not incremented if no further installment of the serial xe2x80x9cMagnumxe2x80x9d is recorded.
In a recording arrangement as defined above, it has proven to be advantageous that keywords whose recurrence counts have values below a minimum threshold value are periodically erasable from the keyword memory by the keyword detection means. As a result of this, it is achieved that only rarely detected keywords are erased periodically, for example, once a month, from the keyword memory and the storage capacity of the keyword memory is thus utilized effectively. Moreover, it is thus achieved that only those keywords which have been detected not too long ago are used for determining television programs which are likely to interest the user.
In a recording arrangement as defined above, it has proven to be advantageous that a television program memory has been provided, in which television program information derived from a received information signal can be stored. As a result of this, it is achieved that all the television program information of television programs which can be received from a television station via a receiving channel within the next week are available for the selection means without delay in order to select a television program which is of interest to the user.
In a recording arrangement as defined above, it has proven to be advantageous that display signal generating means is adapted to be also activated manually so as to generate a display signal representing television program information of selected television programs, and that the display signals can be applied to display means capable of displaying a list of recording suggestions containing television program information of at least one selected television program and that television program information of one of the selected and displayed television programs can be marked manually by recording programming means and the recording arrangement is thereby programmable to record the television program thus marked. A user can then actuate a suggestion programming key of the recording arrangement, which enables display signal generating means to generate a display signal representing a list of recording suggestions, this signal being displayable as a list of recording suggestions on a television set, which constitutes display means. By the actuation of a marking key, one of the selected television programs given in the list of recording suggestions can be marked manually by the user and the recording arrangement can thus be programmed so as to record the marked television program. This yields a particularly simple method of programming the recording arrangement so as to record a selected television program.
In a recording arrangement as defined above, it has proven to be advantageous that the keyword detection means detects only title fragment information having a minimum number of characters as keywords. Thus, it is achieved that words which are used in a title and which form title fragment informationxe2x80x94such as, for example, xe2x80x9cthexe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9casxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cinxe2x80x9dxe2x80x94are not used for determining keywords if they comprise, for example, only three or less letters, also occur in other meanings in a plurality of words and are, therefore, not suitable for describing the field of interest of the user.
In a recording arrangement as defined above, it has proven to be advantageous that an exclusion memory has been provided, said exclusion memory being adapted to store at least title fragment information which is to be excluded as a keyword by the keyword detection means. Thus, it is achieved that certain words which form title fragment informationxe2x80x94such as, for example, xe2x80x9cwhenxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cmaybexe2x80x9dxe2x80x94are not defined as keywords because these words are not suitable for describing the field of interest of the user.
In a recording arrangement as defined above, it has proven to be advantageous that the recording means are adapted to automatically record a television program selected by the selection means. Thus, it is achieved that the recording arrangement automatically records television programs which are of interest to the user and, for example, every night, the user choose from a selection of television programs which have been recorded during the day and which are, for the greater part, interesting for him. This possibility is particularly advantageous for the recording of digital television signals on digital storage media having a large storage capacity.
In a recording arrangement as defined above, it has proven to be advantageous that the receiving means is adapted to receive an information signal from a computer data network. Thus, it is achieved that an information signal containing television program information can be received by the recording arrangement from a computer data network, such as, the Internet, a cable TV system or via a data link to a computer.
The aforementioned as well as further aspects of the invention will be apparent from the embodiment described hereinafter by way of example and will be elucidated with reference to this embodiment.